Like that. Only homeless.

The same man who thought adorable puppies would solve San Francisco's panhandling problem is now saying that soccer could do what former Mayor Gavin Newsom could not: end homelessness.

The city's Recreation and Parks Department just announced it was partnering with the Mayor's Homeless czar Bevan Dufty and Street Soccer USA to kick off the city's very first street soccer team for the homeless.

Officially, the city plans to host the Street Soccer USA West Coast Cup in San Francisco, in hopes that homeless folks will start getting a little bit of physical exercise (although that goal is pretty universal).

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You want to cut the cable cord, but you aren't clear on how to go about it. You aren't much of a gadget geek, you don't regularly follow tech news, and -- while you might have a Netflix account -- you might not know much about the other alternatives and how they compare: Hulu, Blockbuster, Amazon Prime, iTunes, etc.

And you are even less familiar with the hardware that ports Internet video to your TV: Apple TV, Roku, Boxee, and various game consoles and smart TVs. You could do your research online and it wouldn't be very hard, but if you want to get all the most basic information in one place, another option is pay $2.99 to download the e-book "Your Guide to Cutting the Cord to Cable TV" by Mark Glaser of PBS Mediashift.

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Over the last few months, San Francisco car-hire start-ups have been giddily plowing into new markets and introducing a raft of new services. Facing stiffer competition from SideCar and Lyft, Uber unveiled its own ride-share service, UberX in April.

"We're seeing a ... policy of non-enforcement in a number of cities," founder Travis Kalanick announced in a telephone press conference. He said that Uber conveniently equated "non-enforcement" with "tacit approval."

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How's that penciling out?

The news that the city's nascent cruise ship terminal could well lose the city boatloads of money is disturbing -- but hardly unanticipated.

Last year, SF Weekly obtained a January 2012 e-mail from Port of San Francisco Director Monique Moyer to members of her staff lamenting the proposed cruise ship terminal's financial baggage:

"I just don't see how we can commit the Port to financial instability by committing to these obligations. Frankly, the cruise terminal isn't worth the risk. ... Sorry to be the 'Debbie Downer' on this, but I spent a sleepless night and I came to the conclusion that I can't be the one who does this to the Port."

See Also: America's Cup Sailor Refers to Boats as 'Godforsaken Deathtraps'

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Fruitvale, the long-awaited film depicting the 2008 shooting death of Oscar Grant released its trailer yesterday giving viewers a glimpse of what to expect from this Oakland-based drama.

Written and directed by Oakland resident Ryan Coogler, the film details the events leading up to the death of 22-year-old Grant, who was shot and killed by BART Officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale BART station on New Year's Day.

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Now try to make him sing that stupid rainbow song

Go ahead and add killer frog to the list of bewitching things you might find in Golden Gate Park.

Researchers at Stanford University tested 23 African clawed frogs and identified three that are carrying a deadly infection, including one found in Golden Gate Park. The other two that tested positive were found in San Diego.

Bay City News reports that an African clawed frog taken from Lily Pond in Golden Gate Park tested positive for a fungal pathogen that is responsible for the decline or extinction of about 200 amphibian species worldwide, the report said.

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UGH

If your usual shopping trips to American Apparel have been filling you with an unusual amount of self-loathing, perhaps this is why.

People are sick of your fixies and Rollie Fingers mustaches, so much so that they'd like to slap you bow-tie wearing beatniks with a special tax for being so damn annoying.

A new poll released today from the Public Policy Polling shows that a declining number of Americans have a favorable view of hipsters (aka people who pay more than $80 for a haircut that promises they'll look as though they haven't showered in days.)

A growing 42 percent are sick of hipsters and 43 percent aren't quite sure how they feel about the denizens of the Mission Districts of America.

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This probably isn't news, but there's some pretty stark income discrepancies between certain neighborhoods of our fair city. What is news is that while most of us are aware that the rich people live in the Marina and the poor(er) people live in the Tenderloin, the income gaps can vary widely from one short BART stop to the next.

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What comes next?

The off-the-water element of the America's Cup has been the antithesis of smooth sailing. Mayor Gavin Newsom and the "city family" pushed a series of fiscally disastrous deals with Larry Ellison -- only for the yachting billionaire to pull the plug on the cusp of all-but-certain approval by the Board of Supervisors, forcing a scaled-down arrangement.

The 17 or so racing syndicates organizers dazzled city officials with have been whittled down to four. And just how much money the city is going to bleed into the event and how much the private fund-raisers "endeavored" to raise remain contentious issues.

The one thing everybody on both sides of the issue could agree on was that the race itself -- the end result of all this contentious bickering -- would be a marvel. Space age boats, world-class crews, the backdrop of San Francisco Bay: Instant classic.

Or so we'd thought. The death of British Gold Medalist Andrew Simpson last week when the Team Artemis boat broke up in relatively routine conditions has thrown even that into doubt. Doubt, in fact, may not be strong enough a word. A crew member on one of the America's Cup boats had this to say to the New Zealand Herald:

"I hope like hell that whoever survives this thing and wins it changes the boat class to anything safer than these God-forsaken death traps."

See Also: Sailor's Death in Boat Breakup Forces Painful Questions


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First the world didn't end, and now this???

Come to find out, predicting the world will end is not cheap.

Apparently, all that money Harold Camping, prolific Rapture predictor and founder of the bible-thumbing Family Radio network, spent on preparing everyone for an early Judgment Day has made post-prediction life kinda hard for him, financially speaking.

According to CBS News, Oakland-based Family Radio has sold its three largest radio stations, and tax records show the nonprofit network saw its net assets drop to $29.2 million by the end of 2011, from a net worth of $135 million four years earlier.

See Also: Harold Camping Sucks at Math

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Courtesy of the SPCA

Meet Tucker. Last year's winner.

Attention all pups and mutts: Get read to strut your stuff.

This year's Whole Enchihuahua costume and awareness event is set to be fiercer and cuter than ever, as the Bay Area's most adorable pooches and their humans will meet in Dolores Park this Saturday for three hours of entertainment, wet kisses, and canine education.

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Yikes

Authorities say they believe the human head that was found at an Oakland recycling center last week probably belongs to a homicide victim who may have been killed months or even years ago.

California Waste Solutions employees on Wednesday found the mummified skull in a load of debris that had been dropped off for recycling. Investigators have not determined whether the head belonged to a man or a woman, but they do believe the person has been dead for a very long time.

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Andrea Dougall/Oakland Zoo

Sorry, but your kid is not this cute

Every mother will say their baby is the cutest. But before you get carried away doting on your little one, just have a gander at this newborn -- who really is the cutest.

This adorable otter has made one Oakland mother very proud, and just in time for Mother's Day. He has two brothers (equally adorable) who were seen splashing around the Oakland Zoo Thursday afternoon, presumably prepping for their first Mother's Day swim routine.

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Allvoices.com

Trying to find a friend

Eric Holder is a survivor. The United States attorney general's record during President Obama's first term was more than a bit spotty: Holder angered the left when he defended Obama's use of drones to kill suspected terrorists without court proceedings and when he said he couldn't prosecute the banks that gambled away Americans' wealth (and then received more of their money via a taxpayer bailout).

Meanwhile, the right called for his head for his role in the "Fast and the Furious" "gun-walking" scandal that put assault weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartel gangsters.

There was talk that a second-term Obama would find a new man to be AG -- yet Holder has held on. And he will visit the University of California Berkeley tomorrow -- or, in other words, he'll visit the epicenter of the other constituency he's infuriated: medical marijuana users.

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Any takers?

Apparently, there is a less desirable job than being a newspaper reporter: running the Oakland Police Department.

In less than 72 hours, two chiefs at the Oakland Police Department quit.

Former Police Chief Howard Jordan resigned on Wednesday, citing medical reasons for his decision. However, his timing was curious -- a report scheduled to come out the same day he announced his departure revealed that Oakland is the nation's robbery capital. In addition, it detailed how Jordan had assigned only one part-time cops to investigate more than 10,000 burglaries last year.

His abrupt resignation left Deputy Police Chief Anthony Toribio with the interim job.

Toribio was to serve as interim chief until Mayor Jean Quan settled on a permanent replacement -- but, after only two days on the job, he, too, decided he was done.

See Also: Oakland Assigns Just One Cop to 10,000 Burglaries

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Noah Berger, A.P.

The wreck that cost Andrew Simpson his life

Andrew "Bart" Simpson is dead, and that's tragedy enough. Sadly, however, it can't end with that.

The Olympic gold- and silver-medalist drowned on the bay yesterday when the America's Cup AC72 catamaran he was racing with Team Artemis broke up, flipped, and trapped him beneath it.

The British sailor was just 36 -- and God forgive the polemicist who pushes a worldview by crassly exploiting this sad event.

And yet, questions must be asked. And, as anyone even loosely following the America's Cup knows, this is the second time the technologically advanced but crash-prone AC72s have flipped on the bay. In October, a Team Oracle catamaran foundered, causing great damage to the vessel but no injuries to the crew.

Yes, there's a pattern here -- but yesterday's crash was far more disturbing, and not just because a man was killed. October's mishap came as a result of a world-class crew attempting a difficult maneuver with a highly sensitive boat during extreme conditions. Yesterday, however, preliminary reports indicate that Artemis' catamaran simply broke up during a relatively placid day on the bay.

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If you typically bike to work, then Bike to Work Day is probably when you avoid your usual cycle-friendly commuting route because it is now clogged with clumsy inexperienced cyclists.

Or, you're one of those clumsy inexperienced cyclists who has just mustered up the courage to drag that neglected bicycle from the garage or relieve it of its coat hanger duties long enough to wobble to one of the Bike to Work free breakfast events.

While Bike to Work Day certainly promotes a good, clean, healthy, alternative to cars, does it do much beyond piss-off existing cyclists and take a few cars off the road one day a year?

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Delayed

A pedestrian trespassing south of the Broadway Station in Burlingame was struck and killed by southbound Caltrain 314 at approximately early this morning.

Caltrain officials ran a bus bridge in both directions between Millbrae and Burlingame stations until approximately 8:40 a.m. when the northbound track was cleared for single tracking at low speed through the scene.

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Ryan Andresen

Later this month,the Boy Scouts of America's National Council will whether to ban banning gays, and already Eric Andresen, the father of Ryan Andresen, a East Bay boy scout who was denied his Eagle Award because he's gay, is motivating the masses.

Later today, Eric Andresen will gather with other supporters at San Francisco City Hall for a short rally urging the BSA to put an end to its discriminatory policy against gay youth. He will be joined by Scouts for Equality founder Zach Wahls and fellow Scouts and Scout leaders in San Francisco.

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Oakland's lone burglary investigator

Earlier this week, we probably shocked nobody with the news that Oakland was officially the robbery capital of America. But now we're going to tell you something that probably will shock you.

According to news reports, Oakland police assigned only one part-time investigator last year to solve more than 10,000 burglaries.

That's like trying to solve global warming with a single ice cube.

See Also: Confirmed: Oakland Has More Robberies Than Any Other American City

See Also: Second Chief Resigns From Oakland Police Department in 48 Hours

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